TREE SWALLOW 143 



tion (see p. 141). Young White-bellied Swallows have 

 brown upper parts, and in their first plumage a wash of 

 brown on the sides of the breast, but no decided hand 

 entirely across the breast, as in the Bank Swallow. 



Tree Swallow; White-bellied Swallow. Iridoprocne 



bicolor 

 5.90 



Ad. $ . — Upper parts greenisb-Llue, especially bright in 

 strong light ; under parts pure white ; tail notched, but not deeply. 

 Ad. 9 . — Upper parts usually duller. Im. — Upper parts brown ; 

 a faint incomplete dusky collar across the breast. 



Nest, in a hole in a tree, or in a box. Eggs, white. 



The White-bellied Swallow is a summer resident through- 

 out New England and the Hudson Valley, but it is only 

 locally common. Many of the 

 boxes formerly tenanted by Swal- 

 lows are now occupied by English 

 Sparrows. In pure farming coun- 

 try, as along the Concord River, 

 the White-bellied Swallow is still 

 a characteristic feature of the farm. 

 In wilder country, in northern 

 New England, and occasionally 

 throughout its range, it nests in ^'^- ^^- ^''^ ^^^'^"^^ 

 deserted woodpecker holes in trees. About the first of 

 April the earliest arrivals appear along the sea-shore, or 

 over some lake or river, and in a week or two their 

 shrill notes are heard about the farmhouses where they 

 breed. As early as July migrants begin to return from the 

 north, and multitudes now collect over the marshes and 

 along the beaches at the sea-shore, fringing the telegraph 

 wires for rods, hovering in clouds over the bayberry 

 bushes, the fruit of which they eat, or sunning themselves 

 on the sand. A few stay into October. 



